"Bother," Sansa utters softly under her breath and holds her sewing tighter in her grasp. Since her fall, she finds that her arm and hand are still weak and she has difficulty with needlework. The maester has said it was to be expected and that she would heal in time but she find fumbling at a task that she mastered as a young girl to be frustrating. She sets her work aside and looks about the chamber. She is bored of sitting in her room but her husband has even more duties to see to now that the Smalljon has left with Jon and his men of the Night's Watch.

They had left the morning after they had arrived, as soon as the sun rose; and Sansa had insisted on seeing Jon off. She still thought of him as her brother, and likely always would, and she was grateful that he and Samwell Tarly had helped her to see and to resolve that she would continue to believe in love, even if was not the love she knew from songs.

"Give my love to everyone at Winterfell, Jon; please tell them why I could not be there," she had asked.

"I will, Sansa. You'll be strong again soon: I know you will." He had kissed her forehead, like she was still a girl; and she had ruffled Ghost's fur and watched him mount his horse.

"My lady," comes a voice behind her.

Sansa turns now. "Lord Jon." She feels at a loss for words now that they are face to face for the first time since she lost her child; possibly their child. "I- I wish you safe journey," she begins haltingly but she stops when shakes his head mournfully.

"My lady, we have not spoken since…since your terrible fall. Please know how very much I grieve for your loss," he tells her and his eyes are pained.

She looks deeply into his eyes and replies: "I do know…Lord Jon; and I- I am so sorry-"

"Please," he stops her. "I am sorry." He looks around carefully now and sees that no one in the busy, noisy yard is listening to them. "You must have fallen just after you left me," he murmurs, "and it tears at me inside that you were hurt…that you were lying there hurt and we never knew…I never knew…"

"You must not blame yourself…and we must never speak of this again," she tells him sadly. She looks past him now as she sees that her husband is coming out into the yard with a tied leather roll of correspondence for Winterfell. He sees them standing together and he walks towards them.

"My lord, I am pleased to have the chance to speak to you together, as there is something that I have needed to say to you both," she wrings her hands together uncertainly. "Berena…Berena told me of how you helped me, when I had the fever," she tells them and they look at her and at each other and cast their eyes down. "She said that I may have died without your help. Please allow me to say how grateful I am to you both, for helping me to live," she tells them now.

"We could not have done differently, my lady: you are very much loved and needed at Last Hearth. Is that not so, Father?"

"It is," the Greatjon replies unhesitatingly, though he shifts uncomfortably. "Forgive me; I needs give these scrolls to the Lord Commander for the King. I have included your own letters, Sansa."

"Thank you, my lord," she says as he walks to Jon. She turns back to the Smalljon who has not moved away.

"He cares for you very much, you know, my lady. He was quite stricken to see you hurt, and to think he might lose you…I would have hated him for that once…but instead I went to the godswood and prayed that they to spare you for his sake; and swore that I would never hurt him again."

Sansa nods silently, knowingly: she has made the same pledge to herself. "I am grateful for your prayers, Lord Jon," is all she says now.

"Take care of yourself, my lady; and him," he smiles faintly and then bows before walking to his mount.

Two nights have passed since they have left; and Sansa had hoped that her husband would return to their chamber. But he has stayed in the smaller room further down the hallway where she slept for over a year after her wedding night; and they meet to eat their meals in the hall. He asks each day how she is fairing and she assures him that she is well; but still he has not returned. Despondent now, she tucks her sewing back into the many-tiered basket full of fine needles and threads and thimbles and scissors that had been another of her husband's gifts, and sets out to walk the hallways of the castle. As she passes silently in her fur slippers near the solar, she overhears the uncles speaking:

"Did you hear him shouting in the yard this morning? I thought he'd wake Umbers in the crypts."

"That ginger stable boy again…always hanging about at training time; does he think the lord will spar with him then?"

"So the lad would rather fight than shovel shit: no reason to take his head off with curses," Hother grumbles now. "You know what they're saying, don't you: that he's not had a tumble since she had hers."

She hears Mors slam down his tankard now. "Gods be fucked! The wench was all bruised and broken, Smalljon said; and she lost the lord's get besides."

"Well she's standing now," Whoresbane argues, "and all she needs do is stick her legs in the air. She could'a done that with splints! He ought ride to the village to get himself fucked; the gods will see to themselves."

"If that'd be all he needed, he'd take it in the kitchens or laundry," Crowfoot observes shrewdly, "but he don't".

"Might be he doesn't want your leavings," Whoresbane taunts him.

'True that," Mors boasts laughingly, "what the lord wants is his pretty red wolf, so leave him to her….and go see if you can't cross your sword with the ginger stable boy's," he jests to his brother and laughs crudely again.

Sansa backs away quietly and hurries in the other direction. Her ears are burning and her cheeks feel hot: she has already come to realize how frankly the servants talk, and there are things about the uncles that she would much sooner not know.

She climbs the stairs to the next level of the living quarters and notes that the handholds have been chiseled deeper into the stone walls. Berena had told her how her husband had ordered the builders to see to it that the stairs in the castle were made safer; and how the stairs at the base of the north tower are now called Lady Sansa's steps by some servants, though never where the lord could hear them.

She walks to the length of the hallway and this time she overhears the maester with her husband.

"I see Smalljon has been doing well with the castle accounts?" the Greatjon asks authoritatively. As she approaches, she sees he is sitting at the maester's desk and studying a large ledger.

"Very well, my lord, and so House Umber was able to offer a generous gift to the Lady Arya and Lord Harrion for their wedding," the man replies.

Her husband grunts his approval and scratches his beard. "Which other lords of note attend; and which do not, besides myself?"

"Lord Manderly attends with a granddaughter yet unwed; he had offers from the Freys but-"

"Say no more, they asked about my youngest daughter which is why she chose to serve her sister. Well, mayhaps Smalljon will take to the merman's mermaid. "

"Lady Dustin has sent her regrets-"

"Old Barbrey? She'd not enjoy seeing anyone marry a Stark: it was all she wanted once, her father too."

"And I believe Lord Theon attends from Pyke, in his sister's stead," the maester finishes.

"Just-missed Greyjoy," he jeers, 'Envoy of his sister, Queen Asha of the Iron Islands; I'll be sorry to have missed that sight," he laughs but his voice is bitter. He looks up from the ledger now. "Sansa? Are you well? Do you need the maester?"

She smiles warmly for him now. "I am perfectly well, my lord." And I wish you would believe it, she thinks sadly. "I was taking a turn around the castle when I thought I would inquire of the maester if there was aught I could do to speed my recovery; my needlework progresses very badly…any worse and it will be as my sister Arya's best."

"Now, Sansa," her husband chides her, "the poor child was a servant at Harrenhal before they found her…and doubtless she was not doing any fine embroidery there."

"Forgive me, my lord, I did not mean to deride her; only to think of her as she once was now that she is to be wed. I quite admire her for her tenacity; and am pleased for her sake that she will not needs return now to the Riverlands."

"Hm, it's said she had the look of your Aunt Lyanna, though she was a corpse at six-and-ten, instead of a bride: may the gods give her rest," he says somberly.

Sansa thinks of Jon now. "Did…did you know her well, my lord?"

Her husband looks to the maester who excuses himself on some suddenly remembered business and leaves them to speak privately. He leans forward in the chair in which he is seated and looks at her curiously.

"I knew them all well, Sansa: Lyanna, Brandon, your father…Benjen was a boy to us, but I knew him too. Why do you ask this now?"

She bites her lip and turns to look that the maester is truly gone. "Something Jon needed tell me when he was here, my lord. It…it seems my father was not his father, but rather…he is Lyanna's boy….by-"

The Greatjon looks taken aback, but then he nods slowly. "Rhaegar Targaryen," he murmurs. "Gods be good: we should have known."

"But my father never wanted anyone to know. Surely my lord, you know how King Robert hated the Targaryens?"

"So much he smiled at the bloody corpses of Targaryen children the Lannisters presented to him. Curse him and the Others take me, but I never did anything so well in this life as to kill the Mountain!"

Sansa remembers how much Sandor Clegane hated his own brother, and how he told her why; and she finds it curiously fateful that she should have married the very man who killed him.

"Robb still feels that Jon would not be safe if anyone but family should know this. Lord Renly's claim to the throne comes from his Targaryen blood, as did Robert's claim before him."

He ponders this a moment. "I would not think Renly the vengeful, plotting type, especially without that spider, Varys, by his side; still, I do not disobey my King, nor take lightly the confidences of my lady wife," he takes her hand now and smiles reassuringly.

Sansa smiles back at him. "Would you make a confidence to your lady wife, my lord?" She asks and he nods at her. "Would you tell me why Theon is styled just-missed Greyjoy? Surely he did not intend to miss battles."

Her husband scoffs with a sneer. "We were quite sure he did," he insists firmly. "Oh, he did not lack for bravery in battle; I'll not grudge him that; but he took his time getting his father's ships to Lannisport when we attacked the Westerlands and your brother's bannermen believe he wanted the Northerners to be very near their end so that he could arrive just in time to stave off defeat and make himself a hero. Well, we took the West without him or his ships when Glover and I burned old Tywin's fleet at anchor. The Direwolf already flew from Casterly Rock when he showed his smug face," he laughs richly now. "Not a drop of glory nor spoils left for him; and when that wrinkled squid Balon up and died, he turned his ships around so fast to claim his crown that we were left with none to send to Kings Landing for you. But they'd crowned his sister by the time he got there: a woman but a true squid as they saw it. They didn't know him and they didn't trust him; and now neither did we."

"Prince Doran of Dorne sent a ship from Sunspear solely for me when he heard of it, to sail me to White Harbor," she tells him now. "He said he intended it as tribute to my father's honor and to Robb's victory over the Lannisters."

"A fitting tribute then, I'd say; and better than a shipload of Ironborn led by just-missed Greyjoy," he jests.

"Poor Theon," she says aloud, "it seems he was left with little-"

"-but more than he deserved," her husband remarks contemptuously. "He wanted too much, and so he lost it all."

"You dislike him greatly, my lord."

"I hate his wretched guts; and so should you," he says forcefully, and then relents. "He was loyal enough to your brother, but he was always more loyal to himself. If it had served him, Sansa; he would have betrayed us all, and if he had and we had been defeated then you may have died as your father did, but more likely the Lannisters would have kept you to claim Winterfell through you. They would have needed slay your younger brothers to do that, and murdering inconvenient children served Tywin Lannister very well once; doubtless he would not have hesitated to do it again."

Sansa feels cold all over; she knows that he is right. They would have wanted me for my claim. "Would then that I could have had the skills and temperaments of Prince Oberyn's natural daughters, my lord. Prince Doran sent them for company on my journey North."

Her husband's brow shoots up in astonishment now. "Gods be good, Sansa! You have never said that you had met the Red Viper's Sand Snakes… You must tell me tales someday," he laughs hugely.

Sansa swallows and hesitantly reaches to put her hand on his massive shoulder. "It would please me to tell you tales some night, my lord," she tells him tremulously but with hope.

He looks back at her with what she believes is a gentle yearning, and then pats her hand on his shoulder.

"Speak to Berena, Sansa…she will know if it is time yet." He turns awkwardly back to the ledger now.

"As you say…my lord."

Sansa drops a quick curtsey, and leaves the room.